News for Thursday, 24 April 2008

Hereafter is a report from Mark about having problem to get Microsoft upgrading his Office 2004 to Office 2008 accordingly to the advertising campaign running end of last year. We would be interested to know if this is an isolated unlucky story, or a rather spread issue faced by many Mac users.

Attracted by the offer of a nearly free upgrade to Office2008 I bought Office2004 S&T while in the USA last November. I'm now back in Germany, but when I sent in my data to Microsoft for the upgrade they refused and said:
"Da das Office Mac 2004 in den USA erworben wurde, ist eine Teilnahme an der Tech guarantee nicht möglich. Bitte wenden Sie sich an den US Support von Microsoft."
To translate: "As Office 2004 has been bought in the USA you can't participate in the tech guarantee program. Please contact Microsoft's US support."
Nowhere in the tech guarantee is written that it is country specific - they even offer it in a variety of languages (German, English, and French).

So if you are experiencing a similar weird behavior from Microsoft regarding this promotion on Mac Office 2008 we would like to hear about it.

Inphase could launch its holographic storage system next month to store a few hundred GB on a platter of 12 cm.
Each cartridge-protected disc will have a storage capacity of 300 GB and will cost $180. The company claims a lifespan of 50 years for this product.
The drive will be cost $18000, placing at the outside the reach of anyone except the most demanding (such as very long-term storage of film).
But this is just the beginning, 15 years ago a 3x CD reader cost a few hundred dollars. If we assume a similar evolution of price, in 15 years (or sooner) the holographic burner could cost 50$. As long demand increases, prices will fall. It is also true that this medium will offer capacities far in excess of 300GB, so the future is very promising.

Once again Apple has renewed the Refurb Store. We find the same products, among them interesting ones and some you should avoid:
- Mac mini at €529, and since these models are not renewed, this remains a good deal.
- MacBook Core 2 Duo Combo 2 GHz at €799.
- MacBook Core 2 Duo 2 GHz at €849 (Superdrive)
- MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz at €1349.
The unrenewed iMacs are somewhat surprisingly sold at -17% to -18%. And pay attention to the MacBook Core Duo and Mac Pro Rev 1 Quad 3 GHz, these models are of little interest at the offered pricings.@ The Refurb Store

Now that Sony Connect has closed, the question of music with DRM is again in the spotlight. Indeed, the customers of MSN Music need to ask themselves the question. Microsoft has decided to no longer support PlayForSure, they will no longer do much with what they bought after August 31.
Microsoft advises its customers to create audio CDs and then encode these, failing to say that multiple transformations degrade the quality.
Overall, one is entitled to wonder if these companies are trying to undermine the confidence of users in music purchased online. They have everything to gain on several fronts.
Not only do they cast doubt on their competitors who have been more successful, but they encourage customers to migrate to another economic model in vogue, renting. That is of great interest to companies who also sell the same products.

The german sitehttp://www.hardware-infos.com has published the specifications of the new Radeon cards that will come out next month.
On paper, at least, these products appear very attractive, especially the one at the top-of-the-range that would reach Teraflop, while consuming "only" 150W and costing 349$, which is not so expensive for a top-of-the-range card that is equipped with 1 GB of GDDR5.
it remains only to hope than we can use these cards in our Mac before they are exceeded by something even better.

According to Emmanuel Torregano of electronlibre.info the iTunes Video store will become a reality in France in a few weeks time.
Apple will sign agreements with 7 studios to distribute their contents. One speaks of Paramount, Disney, as well as the production house of Luc Besson, EuropaCorp.
Make a rendezvous in the next weeks to know some more.
PS: Now that there will be vidéos, we wish that Apple would also lower the price of Apple TV in Europe! Hint - with the fall of the dollar, it should not cost more than 200€ including all taxes!!

Apple revealed the figures of its last quarter.
They are once again excellent and in strong progression compared to last year:
- 7,51 billion dollars compared to 5,26 billion.
- the profit of 1,05 billion against 770 million.
- Apple sold 2 289 000 Mac, 10 644 000 iPods and 1 703 000 iPhones.
The portables make once again largest of the sales of machines with a little more than 1 400 000 units.
All thus goes very well for Apple that sells more computers than ever and does not seem to have been, all at least for the moment, affected by the American financial crisis.